As you can see on the map, Devekh’s movements these past two weeks have been remarkable (Devekh’s positions and trajectories are represented by the blue dots and lines). He has already given us quite a lot of data points to follow! Two weeks ago Devekh was heading Southeast toward the Tost Mountains. He continued this trajectory, exploring several valleys and ridgelines, before turning North, retracing his path until he returned to the rim of the ‘badlands’, which he skirted for about seven days. He then left the badlands, heading Northeast, to the extreme edge of the mountains. After staying there for a couple of days, he finally took the leap and forged North across the steppe, and is now 12 km away from the Toson Bumba mountain range. If Devekh continues this Northward course for another 20 km, he will be in the Nemegt Mountains, a designated Protected Area (see information provided below about the Protected Area).
Although we will continue to study these behaviors in snow leopards, Devekh’s movement pattern seems to exemplify the behavior of dispersing felids looking to establish territories of their own. We will learn more as data is generated from his and the other cats’ collars. There appear to be several clusters in Devekh’s recent movements over the last two weeks. Orjan will soon be visiting these areas to investigate whether these can be attributed to successful hunting sites.
Aztai (green) has also been very active in the last two weeks. He covered the most territory, traveling 79 km ‘vigilantly’ patrolling the core and borders of his home range as well as making a round trip expedition to the East of his current home range. It appears that he too may have made at least two kills, as there are clusters of location points recorded on the 22nd and 27th.
Shonkhor (red) returned to the core of his home range, following the rugged mountains on his way back from his recent expedition towards the far South. He too patrolled the Eastern edges of his territory during the last fortnight, near the Toson Bumba range.
Tsagaan’s collar has not transmitted any new locations since it was replaced two weeks ago. We hope to recapture him to change the collar soon.
P.S. About the Protected Area where the Nemegt Mountains are located:
The Nemegt Mountains are located in the protected area called Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park. Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park encompasses a series of ridges and valleys that make up the eastern end of the Gobi Altai mountains. Surrounded by low plains, the mountains rise to 2200-2600 meters, and include the Gurvan Saikhan (Three Beauties) named after three adjacent ridges called Zuun (East), Dund (Middle), and Baruun (West) Saikhan. The park, which extends for more than 380 kilometers from east to west, lies at the northern edge of the Gobi desert and includes an extremely varied landscape, including desert steppe, sand dunes, precipitous cliffs and ravines, salt pan, ice canyons, high elevation steppe and stunning mountain vistas.
Using snow leopard signs, such as scrapes, spore and scat; we conducted site occupancy surveys in the Nemegt, Tost and Toson Bumba Mountains in 2008. We estimate that the snow leopard occupancy is slightly higher in the Nemegt Mountains than it is in the Tost-Toson Bumba Mountain ranges. Why then did we choose Tost and Toson Bumba for the study? The Nemegt Mountain range is located in a legally protected area and one of the key objectives of the Long-Term Ecological Study is to understand snow leopard ecology in multiple-use habitats that are not legally protected. Multiple-use habitats are landscapes that are used for more than one purpose such as, grazing of livestock, agriculture, mining, hunting, recreation, and watershed and wildlife protection. From our previous research, we know that snow leopards have extremely large home ranges that in most cases exceed large protected areas. Therefore, understanding how they interact with landscapes in unprotected areas is important for their long-term survival. Tost and Toson Bumba give us an excellent study site as it borders a large protected area, it is a multiple-use location, and it maintains a diversity of wildlife, including at least 16 individual snow leopards.
it must be extremely difficult to track these leopards who obviously are struggling very hard to stay alive. with all the livestock, mining and hunting , i just wish them all well.
Fascinating info! I just wanted to point out that in the image legend it lists Aztai as green and Shonkhor as red, while in the post the two are reversed. Looking forward to future progress updates 🙂